Camera Recommendations

[Tev62]

Camera choice is just the start of it, there is more to consider. Go cheap to start with a non 360 camera paying attention to how you can connect a cheap lavalier mic which can be permanently fitted in your helmet. Batteries are the Achilles heels of any camera so look for ones that allow you to attach a power brick for days worth of battery power. Getting a helmet mount camera is the easiest way to attach a microphone, if you fit it anywhere else you are not going to get any audio apart from wind noise unless you run a microphone all the way to your helmet.

The GoPros have a good reputation but are expensive, you really want the media mods for audio connections etc to make them more useful on a bike. I currently run an old GoPro 4 Black which reliably records 1080P/60FPS connected to a €5 mic in my helmet and a €12 power brick in my pocket. The video output is perfectly watchable on a large screen TV, nothing more is required. I have a 360 camera and they are good but personally I think they only add a dimension to a video and should not be the primary video source. If you do want to make it your only camera you will need a separate audio recorder with a mic in your helmet, its hard to run a mic from a 360 camera on a pole!

Then you have to process the video, your PC wants to have decent processing power, an Intel i7,16GB memory and a decent screen is a minimum to my mind, anything less and your video processing is very cumbersome.

You have to be careful of falling into the trap of hours and hours of video of you and you bike going down the road, no matter how nice the scenery. Very few people find it entertaining and even you will not want to watch back two hours of yourself driving down a road, you want to have a subject matter and be commenting. If you are not talking about something stop recording, save you battery and camera memory. Video files are large and processing a 2 hour video for 5 minutes of content is very time consuming.